Newt Gingrich wants a moon colony

Newt Gingrich is shooting for the moon. At an event today in Cocoa, Florida — near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — he discussed plans to create a moon colony, if elected president.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon. And it will be American,” Gingrich told voters, just days ahead of the Florida primary. “I am sick of being told we have to be timid and I’m sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50-years-old.”

Willard M. Romney called out Gingrich for his lunar dreams at a debate last month. Team Romney is probably hard at work editing the “Gingrich-is-on-another-planet” attack ad now. But, the former House speaker stands by his “grandiose” goals.

“I was attacked the other night for being grandiose. I would just want you to note: Lincoln standing at Council Bluffs was grandiose. The Wright Brothers standing at Kitty Hawk were grandiose. John F. Kennedy was grandiose. I accept the charge that I am grandiose and that Americans are instinctively grandiose,” he said.

Gingrich has been a long-time advocate of furthering space travel.

The latest poll numbers show the Republican frontrunners almost in a dead lock, with Romney getting 36 percent of the vote and Gingrich getting 34 percent.